The
Babylon Democracy Promotion project, which began on August
15th 2004, set out to encourage the students at the University
of Babylon in Hillah, Iraq, to express their opinions
freely about any issue, whether it be related to university
life, politics, religion or simply being a student, and
to tolerate the views of others. The project also sought
to encourage respect for the freedom of individuals and
increase students' understanding of democracy. The project
aimed to meet these goals through a student-run fortnightly
newsletter and student debates.

Overall,
the project has been a great success and we plan to continue
this project at the University of Babylon and to replicate
it at other universities around Iraq.

Impact
of the project

The
newsletter and debating society, which the committee decided
to call Al-Iraqi (The Iraqi), initially met much suspicion
by students and staff at the university. This presented
many difficulties at first, the most important of which
was that the university refused to allow distribution
of the newsletter on campus. However, when students saw
that the newsletter was encouraging them to submit articles
and that many articles were being published from varying
opinions they began to warm to the newsletter and submissions
began to increase rapidly. The major break through occurred
when the committee announced the Annual General Meeting
and asked for members of the society to submit nominations
for the 2005-06 committee. This changed the perception
of the society both within the student population but
also with university staff since they could see the project
was a student run project with no political motivation
behind it, which simply wanted to offer a medium for students
to express their opinions, share ideas and debate. Membership
swelled to over 300, 27 nominations were submitted and
135 students attended the Annual General Meeting and cast
their votes. University staff opened their doors and even
allowed the Annual General Meeting to take place on campus.
The student union took it upon themselves to distribute
the newsletter on campus. While the university initially
turned a blind eye to this since it had changed its perception
of the newsletter, later in the academic year it officially
made an exception for Al-Iraqi to its rule banning the
distribution of written material on campus.

The
greatest achievement that the project has made has been
the change in atmosphere at Babylon University. Through
the newsletter and debates, students feel confident in
expressing their opinions and now expect their opinion
to be challenged by others. Whether it is through articles
on university life, politics, religion, the rights of
women, etc. the project has provided a platform for discussions
and the exchange of ideas to flourish.

Debates

The
project held 21 debates. The debates were lively and on
several occasions attracted local media to cover the event.
Several students particularly became fond of the debates
and the chance it presented for them to allow them to
express their opinions to an audience and to improve their
arguments. In fact, despite the project officially finishing
on November 15, 2005, debates are still being held and
organized by the students.

The
following topics were debated:

1.
Uniform dress at university2.
Women and the constitution

3.
Separation of religion and state4.
Federalism for Iraq
5. Unemployment fuels terrorism
6. Early marriage
7. Political activism on campus
8. Saturday should be a holiday

9.
Rule of the majority
10. Role of women in politics11.
Role of youth in politics
12. The National Assembly has the legitimacy to write
the draft constitution
13. The rule of law is above any other law [i.e. divine]
14. The National Assembly is right to confront bureaucratic
corruption
15. The writing of the constitution should be transparent
16. The referendum is a good way to approve/disapprove
the constitution
17. The constitution is a solution for terrorism
18. The trial of Saddam is fair
19. Migration of young Iraqis is a solution to their problems
20. The Islamic veil limits freedom
21. NGOs should not be monitored by the state

Newsletter

At
the outset, one of the aims of the project was to provide
a moderate form of religion to combat the extremism and
radical movements gripping many university campuses in
Iraq, including the University of Babylon. The project
therefore intentionally dedicated four pages of the newsletter
to religious affairs, as well as ensured that some religious
matters are covered within debates. This strategy has
encouraged articles and debate participation from varying
sides of the religious spectrum, and has advanced a progressive
and moderate viewpoint on campuses. For example, at the
beginning of the academic year, the largest society within
the University of Babylon was the Islamic Student Union,
which is aligned with the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Iraqi Society is now not only larger in membership
to the Islamic Student Union, but many of Muqtada's supporters
are now abandoning their original views and joining the
Al-Iraqi. Another example is demonstrated by an article
published in the early issues of the newsletter which
described how Arab democrats like Chibli Mallat were inspired
by the late Islamic thinker and scholar, Muhammad Baqr
al-Sadr, for his essentially democratic ideology. Supporters
of Muqtada al-Sadr were deeply unhappy with the article
and were causing great tensions with Al-Iraqi, claiming
that the article wrongfully labels Mohammed Baqr al-Sadr
as a democrat and a "tool of America". As the
newsletter has a policy of publishing varying viewpoints,
Muqtada's supporters were invited to submit an article
stating their own opinions of Muhammad Baqr al-Sadr's
ideology - this in itself was a shock to them and made
them take a step back and re-think their outlook on the
issue. Although they did not submit a rebuttal to that
particular article, they have warmed to the society and
are now regular contributors to the newsletter and debates.

The
Student Affairs section has become essential reading for
many students and staff and truly reflects life at the
University of Babylon. The following are a few examples
of how influential some of the articles in this section
have become:

Issue
3: An article was written about the poor state of student
accommodation, the risks this posed and the shortcomings
of the university. Within a few days of the issue being
published all the student accommodations were revamped
with new carpet, new fridges and were generally cleaned
out.

Issue
16: An article questioned why the university had failed
to recognize students who had graduated with merits
or distinctions. After the issue was published the provincial
council of Babylon invited all new graduates with merits
or distinctions to a special ceremony in their honor.

Issue
17: A powerful editorial was written about the state
of the university campus, how trash was over-flowing
and how this affected the mood of students and risked
their health. Only 2 days after the issue was distributed
the university took the unprecedented step of launching
a mass clean up operation and even planted the first
trees on the campus to improve the studying environment
for students!

Issue 19: An article by a student revealed that the
university had a secret internet room on campus, but
this was purely restricted for staff use. Following
this article the university made the internet room available
for students to use on certain days of the week.

Within
the university, the newsletter has become an authority
for both students and staff to refer to. The newsletter
has become the main port of call for students to raise
concerns about the university. The university has respected
and valued the opinions expressed by the students regarding
the university and has on most occasions either taken
action to rectify an issue, or have responded with an
article/letter explaining their position. One of the most
successful columns that the newsletter has run was 'I
Want This Resolved', in which an article by a student
is published regarding a particular problem they have
at university. In many instances the submissions were
investigative articles which exposed a problem at the
university and which commonly led to the university taking
action. In turn, the university recently approached the
newsletter committee and requested they be given a regular
column to reply to some of the concerns that are raised
in the Student Affairs section of the newsletter and to
explain the steps they are taking.

Several
students with a special talent for writing have almost
become regular columnists in the Opinions section of the
newsletter and have been transformed into mini-celebrities
on campus! Many students have expressed their appreciation
that the newsletter has allowed them to develop their
writing and journalistic skills and has been an open forum
for them to debate many issues.

Very
early on, the newsletter committee realized that the Opinions
section would have to be expanded from the initial 5 pages
that they had set aside for it to 8, which is half the
newsletter, purely because so many impressive articles
were being submitted. Over 200 opinion pieces, which the
committee approved as being of high enough standard for
publication, were submitted in the final week alone.

Except
for the issues published during the first phase, every
issue of the newsletter contained a cut-out feedback form.
The results of these feedback forms are as follows:

Fig. 1 Respondents who felt articles were either good
or excellent from Phases 2 through to 4. The dip in
respondent's opinions about the quality of the articles
may be due to the growing expectations of the newsletter
and the fact that the newly elected team, who lacked the
experience the previous team had gained, took over during
the 4th phase.

Fig. 2 Respondents who thought articles express their
university concerns from Phase 2 through to 4. The
newsletter committee reacted very well to the poor results
of the 2nd phase and improved this section so much so
that it now truly reflects the pulse of the school. While
almost all respondents thought that articles expressed
their university concerns to some degree in both the 3rd
and 4th phase, those who thought articles did this to
a good or excellent degree has continued to increase from
each phase.

Fig.
3 (above) Respondents who felt the newsletter, to varying
degrees exposed them to opinions different to their &
Fig. 4 (Below) Respondents who felt the newsletter
articles initiated a degree of discussion amongst them
and their friends. Almost universally, respondents
increasingly feel that the newsletter has presented them
with different opinions to theirs and sparked some degree
of debate amongst their friends.

Fig 5 Respondents who felt the newsletter covers a
good to excellent range of opinions. At first glance
this graph shows that during the second phase 76% of respondents
felt the newsletter covered a good to excellent range
of opinions, which increased to 94% in the third phase,
but this dramatically dropped to 65% in the fourth phase.
However, the answer to the previous questions indicates
that this may be more of a subjective answer by the respondents
rather than an objective one. In fact, this can even be
seen to be encouraging as it may be that the topics being
discussed are ones which many students feel passionately
about and may feel disappointed that equal space is being
given to other opinions.

Fig 6 Respondent who felt the newsletter increased
their understanding of civil society and politics. At
every phase surveyed, respondents felt that the newsletter
was increasing their understanding of civil society and
politics. This result is very rewarding for the newsletter
team as it means Al-Iraqi is not only achieving the stated
aims of encouraging debate, freedom of speech and tolerance,
it is also providing valuable civic education to students
at Babylon University.

Conclusion

The
Babylon Democracy Promotion project has helped the students
at the University of Babylon to freely express their opinions,
as well as to expose them to varying viewpoints. The project
has helped to develop a lively and tolerant atmosphere
of debate and civilized discussion within the university
on different levels: informal debates within circles of
friends, exchanges of differing opinions in the newsletter,
as well as in formal debates conducted by the Al-Iraqi
Society. The equal opportunity given to students of all
opinions to express their views in the newsletter and
at debates, without censorship or favoritism, has fostered
a culture of tolerance and respect of individuals. At
the debates, as there are no pre-selected debaters, every
attending student has an equal and fair opportunity to
nominate themselves to represent the proposition or opposition.
Furthermore, a society based on a constitution has given
both the coordinators, as well as members of the society,
the opportunity to practice democracy on campus - coordinators
are bound by their constitutional rights and duties, and
the members were given the opportunity to participate
in a free and fair election, as well as the opportunity
to freely express their opinions without censorship or
prejudice.

The
successes achieved thus far by the Babylon Democracy Promotion
project should be built upon and the positive experience
this has provided to the University of Babylon students
up until now should be continued and offered to the students
attending the university next year as well. The sense
of ownership that students feel towards the Al-Iraqi Society
should be nurtured further as students are now, more than
ever, truly able to contribute and be part of an institution
that encourages vital pillars of democracy.